Mike Pence’s Fantasy Running Mate

Tim Kaine and Mike Pence during the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday.CreditCreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

We’ve seen presidential candidates in the past try to defend an unlikely choice of running mate. But we’ve never before seen a vice-presidential candidate try to defend a bizarre choice of nominee.

Yet that was the daunting task that Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana faced on Tuesday night, as he labored to defend Donald Trump, a nominee with contempt for many of the principles, much of the policy agenda and all of the dignity of the Republican Party that Mr. Pence cherishes.

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia was on the attack from the start, declaring that “the thought of Donald Trump as commander in chief scares us to death.” Mr. Pence, cool and coherent where Mr. Trump, in his debate with Hillary Clinton last week, was petulant and erratic, made his own strategy clear right away: He set out to invent a new version of Donald Trump, one that he could believe in.

Mr. Pence simply ignored the Donald Trump we have seen on the trail for more than a year — the one who would build a wall against Mexico, the one who would disregard our security treaties and tear up our trade agreements, the one with a crush on Vladimir Putin — and instead dreamed up a more conventional, right-wing Republican, a Republican, that is, very like Mike Pence.

Mr. Pence, who describes himself as a Christian conservative, knows that Mr. Trump, who changed his political party affiliation five times between 1999 and 2012, is no ideological soul mate. Mr. Pence issued a shaky endorsement of his fellow conservative Ted Cruz during the primaries. But Mr. Pence has his own political aspirations and abandoned his re-election bid for governor to sign on with Mr. Trump when he was surging.

Since then, Mr. Pence has been engaged in the same compromising maneuvers that Republican leaders like Paul Ryan, the House speaker, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, have been performing almost daily since they reluctantly embraced their party’s standard-bearer.

On Tuesday night, Mr. Pence resorted at times to repeating some of Mr. Trump’s own thin claims, including his preposterous justification for not releasing his tax returns. And he simply ducked rather than try to address questions about Mr. Trump’s egregious attacks on women and minorities; instead, he accused the Democrats of unleashing “an avalanche of insults” on his running mate.

Mr. Pence was far more successful than Mr. Trump last week in taking the fight to his opponent. Mr. Kaine occasionally struggled to make the best case for Mrs. Clinton, interrupting repeatedly and resorting to canned lines that Mr. Pence mocked with the pained expression that he wore when he wasn’t smirking or shaking his head.

A strong moment for both candidates came when they turned to the question of abortion, an issue that has been largely absent from this campaign. Both men are personally opposed to abortion, but Mr. Kaine supports a woman’s right to make the choice for herself. Their discussion showed that their respective positions were deeply felt and carefully considered. It offered a rare glimpse of politicians intelligently exploring a fraught question — and also revealed how determined Mr. Pence is to roll back abortion rights.